Studies by investigators at the University of Iowa Child Welfare Station before World War II demonstrated that the intelligence levels of the mentally retarded could be raised, often up to and beyond normalcy (IQ 100). Yet, the implications were never seriously followed up on anything approaching a broad-gauged scale. The juridical climate now supports the position that, because the evidence is that all the retarded can learn under proper conditions, they are all entitled to public schooling. It is suggested that the public schools may soon be confronted with an even more far-reaching educo-legal thrust based on the kind of evidence first reported by the Iowa investigators; that is, the public schools have a responsibility not only to educate or train the retarded to achieve their retarded potentialities, but to increase those potentialities, i.e., raise their intelligence levels.
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